29 March 2019

Ruminations – 29mar19 (updated 2apr19)

George Rebane

For our approval poll watchers,Politico counsels a little prudence in that department and not put too much stock into those reports. “If the election were held today, Mr Trump would likely ride to a second term in a huge landslide.” (emphasis mine)

The Democrats’ agenda? There ain’t none, as I’ve been pointing out to our leftwing readers. This was echoed by Rep Cheri Bustos (D-IL), head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, earlier this week in a Democrat caucus where she admonished members that “voters have little idea what the Democratic policy agenda is; the party urgently needs to move beyond 2016.” My advice is to pay her no attention.

Some ‘obstruction’ crumbs is all that Mueller could leave the Trump haters. Since he was not able to interview the president (who submitted written answers to questions), Mueller claimed that a robust exoneration could not be granted. Instead, he left that task up to AG Barr, which, of course, was the right thing to do.

The Left, here and elsewhere, continues to sanctify Hillary’s performance as SecState and presidential candidate, not because there is no evidence of her multitude of wrongdoings (the evidence is plentiful, documented, and made public), but because she was not subsequently indicted by an inept/corrupt Obama DoJ. Kinda similar to arguments that have been put out to defend OJ (who was actually tried and found innocent!!) and Smollett. Maybe things will be different when Lindsey and the Senate have another go at it. I can see the backroom deal making already – ‘You guys cut the crap out about Trump, and we’ll give Hillary a pass.’

[30mar19 update] TechTest2019 was given today in the NUHS Science Lecture Hall with test takers from Nevada Union, Bear River, and Ghidotti. This is the 13th year that this merit scholarship test has been sponsored by the Sierra Economics and Science Foundation. (And the 9th year that TechTestJr was administered to 5th and 8th graders at the facilities of sponsors AJA Video and Telestream.) A reader informed me that the FUE continues to unabashedly tout his youngster, while denigrating TechTest as somehow being ideologically tainted (since I have been the test's author). I don't think any of the FUE's echo chamber could find anything ideological in any of the tests, given that any of them could even understand the questions - they cannot support their braying. Nevertheless, His Moral Highness continues his calls for the school district to withdraw its years-long support of this effort by volunteers to promote STEM careers.

[31mar19 update] CA’s income inequality plays well with those ‘over educated’ liberal constituencies. The state’s top 1% pay 46% of its income taxes. And this year’s IPOs promise to further enrich its coffers as the tech employees cash in their now publicly traded stocks. The Dems take turns vilifying the 1% when it suits them, and then again they brag about CA’s riches when those fruits of income inequality suit them. Their elites know how to pander their rank and file voters who have no ability to pick up on how the state’s tenuous wealth cornucopia works.

Mad Max Waters, now head of the House Financial Services Committee, is on record for making some pretty outrageous recommendations on how civil society should deal out social justice in the public square. Kinda reminds me of the religious police that roam the streets of Islamic countries keeping citizens on the straight and narrow. Does anyone know why arguably both light-fingered and light-headed Dems such as she are given a pass by their party leadership? (That she’s part of the party leadership is not a fair answer.)

Democrats have become more educated than Republicans over the last 20 years, according to Pew Research. That is not so surprising given that most non-STEM undergraduate curricula have essentially become high school remediation courses, and cover newly minted degree fields that teach leftwing politically correct ‘skillsets’ for which no private sector employer is willing to pay out of their own pocket. Were it not for the Trump economy, many more of these highly-educated graduates would be asking ‘Would you like fries with that?’, and living at home with their parents. The Washington Times article (here) provides details on this change over.

[1apr19 update] Nationalized healthcare is not sustainable. Progressives continue in terminal denial about the sustainability of nationalized healthcare. No country has been able to field a sustainable program, even as they have reduced services, increased waiting times, and through ‘death committees’ terminated/denied care for certain maladies and age groups. Political leaders have expressed their distress, but they are between a rock and a hardplace when trying cut spending with a population firmly fastened on the government tit. Data on some of the more significant developed countries has been collected and published by the OECD (shown below) and in these pages. That our leftwing elitists continue to bamboozle their lightly-read grassroots constituents (as witnessed here by RR’s liberal readers; see 29mar19 Sandbox) again puts them somewhere on the ignorance-to-evil axis. (more here and here)

Facebook CEO Zuckerberg appeals for more government regulations of the internet and its contents. Facebook has become a corporatist giant, and now that it has established its infrastructure, product lines, advertizing relationships, and government inroads, it is ready to start constructing deep moats around Festung Facebook. Corporatism is the well-worn path always taken by giant corporations when they are no longer nimble enough to fight off the new entrants into their markets. At that stage of insuring longterm profits, partnering with the government gun with politicians on the take makes all the sense in the world. (more here)

[2apr19 update] The Democrats have bought and own the criminality and human tragedy at the Mexican border. It is they who have literally bought AND paid for the central American activists to goad their fellow citizens to undertake the dangerous journey north, on which all manner of afflictions and atrocities await them. And it is the Dems who continue to invite and welcome illegal entrants, and oppose the erection of any border barriers that would immediately cut the ingress rate from its current 1,000,000+ a year to something that our Border Patrol was staffed to handle. Today’s human disaster is all theirs, and they could stop it at any time; but that would be counter to their anti-American agenda that is in full operation. Evil.

Comments

Glenn Reynolds: I REMEMBER A LOT OF PEOPLE CONFIDENTLY TELLING ME THAT TRUMP’S LEGAL TEAM HAD NO IDEA WHAT IT WAS DOING: How Trump Dodged A Special Counsel Interview — And A Subpoena Fight. “The president’s legal team asked, ‘What evidence have you obtained that justifies you interviewing the president?’ according the person, who added that Mueller’s office was ‘never able to articulate a compelling case. They never gave up asking, but they had no good answer for that question.’”

That’s because they had nothing, and knew they had nothing, and Trump’s lawyers knew they had nothing, and knew that they knew that they had nothing. And stuck to their guns.

Here is a reminder for the o so great pony tail of ignorance on things that he has clearly forgotten because of you know, the D thing. Shhhhh

Team Obama racked up a long list of seriously bad moves in dealing with Moscow. There was the failed “Russian reset” that was going to win Putin over with kindness. There was the gift of New START – a treaty that let Russia to build up its nuclear arsenal further, while forcing us to cut ours. They compounded that error by letting Putin get away with cheating on the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces treaty. Then, of course, there were the bungled responses to Putin’s invasion and annexation of Crimea and his adventurism in Syria.

It’s not like no one warned Obama that Putin’s Russia was a rising menace. But Mr. “No Drama” simply pooh-poohed the notion that it was anything to worry about.

Given that history, is it any wonder that Putin thought he could mess with the 2016 elections and get away with it?

The main goal was, no doubt, simply to sow doubt and distaste about whichever candidate emerged the winner. But Trump’s speculation that Moscow would have been happier with a Clinton presidency is probably right. Her election might well have perpetuated many of the worst elements of Obama’s policies, including letting Russia undermine European energy security and energy free markets.

Not everyone is ready to fall on their sword for rancid Russian dressing, almost as if the truth has set them free!

Gabbard, who lags in 2020 polls behind better-known rivals, said in a video posted to her Twitter account that “now that Mueller has reported that his investigation revealed no such collusion, we all need to put aside our partisan interests and recognize that finding that the president of the United States did not conspire with Russia to interfere with our elections is a good thing for our country.”

Well, we just have to wait and wait. Lots of platitudes in the meantime.

Medicare for all is about it. Cost of 33 trillion or so over the next ten years and requires destroying the private health insurance for about 160 million Americans who currently have it and most happy with it. Opps, how silly of me. They are all behind the Green New Deal...but they don’t want to talk about that, not to mention debate it’s merits. Another platitude.

Aha! I have found the Dem-Socialist Party agenda! Goes like this:

‘The Earth has been around for about 4.5 billion years, yet
AOC, Beto, Bernie, Warren, Kamala, etc. predict we have twelve years left
unless we vote for the Dem-Socialists.’

Dr Rebane sez:
“The Left, here and elsewhere, continues to sanctify Hillary’s performance as SecState and presidential candidate, not because there is no evidence of her multitude of wrongdoings (the evidence is plentiful, documented, and made public), but because she was not subsequently indicted by an inept/corrupt Obama DoJ”

"This woman comes over, and she says 'Is that a Trump hat?' I said, 'I think it is, yes,'" Victor recalled. He said Mankey then turned to the rest of the Starbucks customers and said, "Hey, everybody. Come over here. Let’s get this guy! He’s a hater! I’m calling him out! He hates brown people. He’s a Nazi."

Opps. I posted this in Sandbox, should be here: Rationed Care in Britain

“NICE guidance is not mandatory and clinical commissioners must have the freedom to make clinically led decisions that are in the best interests of both individual patients and their wider local populations. The NHS does not have unlimited resources.”

BillT 134pm - Excellent catch Mr Tozer. This, and many more reports like this documenting the global unsustainability and reduction of national healthcare services, is sure to bring out the Collectivist Cricket Corps.